Whats on your iPod? Over 12,000 songs, predominantly 60s and 70s rock as well as reggae and New Orleans influences (Bruce, Dead, Stones, Allmans, Radiators, Marley)

Pet peeve: Double standards

Fantasy job: Ski bum by winter, camp counselor by summer

Executive you most admire: My father. I never met a man who worked so hard, yet always seemed to be around.

Business advice: Dont take no for an answer all the funs in creating ideas and reasons for someone to say yes.

When
Keith Wachtel met John Collins for dinner at the Palm Restaurant in New York in
2007, he expected to just catch up with a former NFL colleague. But catching up
turned serious when Wachtel started to talk about his career.

Keith WachtelNHL

In an
effort to offer guidance, Collins asked Wachtel what he wanted to be doing in
five years.

“I want
to run an organization — a team, a client, whatever,” Wachtel said. “I just
don’t always want to be a sponsorship sales guy.”

“I didn’t
know that,” Collins said. “You ought to look at the NHL.”

Collins,
who joined the league in 2006 and is now its COO, explained that the NHL
offered a “stretch opportunity” that would allow Wachtel to lead a department
of his own for the first time. Wachtel chewed the idea over for several weeks
before taking Collins up on the idea. His decision to take a job at the NHL has
paid dividends for everyone involved.

Wachtel
now manages 30 employees. Over the last year and a half, his team has generated
more than $200 million in sponsorship revenue by signing deals with blue-chip
companies like McDonald’s, Cisco, Honda, Bell Canada and others.

He’s also
helped develop new properties designed to further league revenue. He recently
collaborated with the NHL’s new media division to develop a mobile offering
that increased the value of the NHL’s telecommunications deal in Canada, and he
is working with the NHL’s events division to bring the league’s awards show to
Las Vegas this summer.

Throughout
it all, Wachtel has remained accessible to partners and remained focused on
adding strategic value to their deals, said Kathy Casso, Anheuser-Busch senior
director of marketing.

“As a
team of people there, they’ve really changed it up, and there’s this openness
to look at things differently,” Casso said. “It’s only improved the value of
the NHL for its partners.”